The NBA (National Basketball Association) is never just a business. It's always business. It's always personal. All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal.
A long list. From getting cut from the high school basketball team, to getting fired from jobs, getting credit cards rejected and cut up. Rejection has only been a distraction, not a roadblock. “Every no gets me closer to a yes,” was the saying I used to use.
You always have to know what business you are in. Everybody thought we were in the basketball business. It's an NBA-team; we are not in the basketball business. We are in the business of creating experiences and memories.
One thing I learned in the NBA is that the No. 1 job of a general manager is to keep his job. They are only 30 positions where you make millions and hang around with basketball players all day.
